Many organizations, institutions and other entities are comprised of members or otherwise deal with different parties. It is quite often necessary for these entities to send materials to their members or interested parties which bear information that is personal or unique to each addressee. For example, a membership organization usually provides each member with a membership card showing the member's name and perhaps other personal data. Each such card is typically mailed or otherwise delivered in an envelope that also has at least the member's address on the outside. The customary procedure in accomplishing this objective is to print or otherwise apply a member's name on a membership card in one operation before the card is inserted into its envelope, and to put the member's address on said envelope during another operation either before or after the card is inserted therein. This procedure obviously has the potential through human or other error of mismatching cards and envelopes so that a card ends up in an envelope addressed to someone other than the member whose name appears on the card. Moreover, the card and its envelope must be separately run through the same or different printers in two separate operations, which can increase the printing time or cost of personalized data. A Gunther U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,856 discloses one prior art technique for personalizing envelopes and their inserts by using two separate printers.
The subject invention obviates the above noted disadvantages by providing a mailer having an envelope with an open window or aperture therein which permits a card or other insert inside the envelope to be printed during the same operation that also prints data on the envelope. Although some prior art patents broadly teach the concept of mailers or documents having windows for viewing materials therebehind (e.g. see Krantz U.S Pat. No. 3,869,964; Dallaserra U.S. Pat. No. 4,455,809; and Ashby U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,594), they do not disclose the specific structure of the novel mailer described and claimed herein, nor do they suggest a single printing operation wherein data is printed on an insert behind an envelope window and on said envelope after the mailer has been constructed.